Agricultural News

Roundtable for Sustainable Beef Adding Final Touches to Its Plan Before Sharing with the Industry

Mon, 13 Feb 2017 18:15:06 CST

John Butler is with the Beef Marketing Group based in Manhattan, Kansas and also serves currently as the chair for the US Roundtable on Sustainable Beef. Farm Director for the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network, Ron Hays, spoke with Butler recently during the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and Cattle Industry Convention in Nashville, about where the group is right now on advancing sustainability within in the industry.

“A tremendous amount of work has been done,” Butler said. “The organization really is only two years old and really the first year and half of our job was to build the framework around identifying the key indicators around sustainability and then to build the metrics for each indicator for each sector of the beef value chain.”

According to Butler there are six of these indicators that have been identified for the cow/calf sector and work continues on finding a measurable way to apply this model of evaluation at the ranch level and to each of the industry segments, from feedyard to packer, all the way to the consumer. Butler, says this framework is almost completed and that the next step will be to vet this process. The plan that the group has developed will be shared with the industry with hopes for constructive feedback before the process is officially published for implementation.

“It’s about really the consumer wanting to know more about where their food comes from,” Butler said. “We have a challenge to enhance the trust of our product - that’s what this is about.”

Listen to Hays and Butler’s full discussion over the work being done by the US Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, on today’s Beef Buzz.

The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR below for today's show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.

Click below to listen to Hays and Butler's full discussion over the work being done by the USRSB